As urban areas around the world continue to grow, cities are placing an
increasingly heavy burden on our environment. Policymakers should therefore
treat resource efficiency as equal in importance to climate policy if they want
to move towards a sustainable future, according to a new report from the
International Resource Panel.

The Weight of Cities: Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization calls for a
new strategy to meet the needs of 21st-century urbanization, one that would
result in cities that are low carbon, resource efficient, socially just, and in
which people can live healthy lives.

Unless the world’s urban areas make optimal use of their resources, cities will
soon demand far more resources than our planet can sustainably provide, placing
a huge burden on agriculture, energy, industry and transport. In the next 30
years, 2.4 billion people are likely to move to urban areas, bringing the
proportion of the global population living in cities by 2050 to 66 per cent.

The annual amount of natural resources used by urban areas could grow from 40
billion tonnes of raw materials in 2010 to 90 billion tonnes by 2050, an
increase of 125 per cent, if changes are not made to how cities are built and
designed.

Agriculture Is Creating Higher
Income Jobs in Half of EU Member States but Others Are Struggling

Source:
worldbank.org,
2018-02-19

Half of EU member states have leveraged the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to
significantly reduce poverty and drive higher incomes in farming, while other
countries are still lagging, according to the latest World Bank study.

The ‘Thinking CAP’ report details how new investments and services in farming,
reinforced by the EU’s flagship agriculture policy, can drive down poverty and
transform agriculture into a sector which can provide higher paying jobs for
those who farm.

Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Denmark and the Netherlands are all examples of
member states that have successfully modernized their agricultural sectors by
providing advisory services, roads, secure property rights and access to
education and health services in rural areas. Others, such as Bulgaria,
Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Greece, still have some way to go in reducing
poverty and ensuring that agricultural work pays. They can do so by improving
the basic conditions for a successful agricultural sector, which would improve
the results of the financial investments available under the CAP. Other
remaining member states fall in between these two categories - achieving a
successful transformation or lagging behind.

UNECE and FAO advance reporting of sustainable forest management in the Caucasus
and Central Asia

No country in the Caucasus or Central Asia prior to 2016 had developed
indicators to monitor progress towards sustainable forest management at the
national level. Two years later, thanks to a United Nations Development Account
(UNDA) project implemented jointly by UNECE and FAO, five countries – Armenia,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan – are developing national forest
monitoring systems.

Representatives of all five countries are meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, this week
to share experiences and take stock of progress during a regional interim
workshop. The workshop is organized in conjunction with a meeting of the UNECE/FAO
Team of Specialists on Monitoring Sustainable Forest Management to allow mutual
support and exchange among experts.

“The Team of Specialists on Monitoring Sustainable Forest Management considers
criteria and indicator sets as a strong monitoring and forest policy tool, and
we are glad they will now be applied in the Caucasus and Central Asia as well,”
said Dr Stein Tomter of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, leader
of the Team of Specialists. “This workshop in Tbilisi provides a fertile soil
for cooperation, and we do hope to gain some perspectives and identify new
members for the team here.”

Since the project began, Georgia and Kazakhstan have significantly advanced the
development of their national forest reporting systems.

The failure of 59 of the world’s largest banks to recognize climate risks and
opportunities threatens to undermine efforts to support the transition to a
low-carbon economy. This is the key finding of a report by Boston Common Asset
Management report titled "Banking on a Low-Carbon Future".

Banks play a crucial role in the allocation of capital in the economy by
providing financial services to businesses, households, governments and
financial institutions.

As a result, banks are exposed to climate change-related risks including extreme
weather events such as heat waves, droughts, storms and sea level rise, along
with energy transition adjustments to limit greenhouse gas emissions which can
create both risk and significant financial opportunities

In 2015, the international community adopted the Paris Agreement on climate
action. The main objective of the agreement is to limit the global average
temperature rise to well below 2°C and as close as possible to 1.5°C.

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